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Grow Your Company And Launch New Products Without Overhead

February 9, 2012

We’re happy to feature a guest post from one of our long time members, Ted Chan, founder of Upward Mobility and Noyo. Ted’s team, which has grown rapidly over the past two years, has always been an active part of our member community and we’re glad to share their story and announce the news of their first product launch, Noyo! If you’d like to learn more about Ted, catch him on Linked In and Google + or email him at ted@noyo.com.

Over the past couple years, I have successfully launched two companies: Upward Mobility, a leading creator of educational apps, and Noyo. There’s another one coming in a few months. One of our key partners is WorkBar, a Boston co-working space.

Why WorkBar works for us:

Great environment for our core staff: I retain three brilliant young staff members in Boston. The rest of our staff is virtual. WorkBar provides an ideal environment for our core locals—the social, interactive atmosphere allows them to learn from other members, and keeps them from being isolated. Need proof that employees prefer WorkBar? When offered the chance to move to a private office, our staff voted unanimously to stay at WorkBar.

Excellent collaborative working space: On any day, our team has a choice of where to collaborate. There are tall drafting tables, round tables, long communal benches, private conference rooms with projectors and whiteboards, individual desks, and even a cozy nook with a couch in back .

Location, location, location: WorkBar is located across the street from South Station, which makes for easy commutes for our employees (and me!).

Employee perks: WorkBar hosts fantastic parties. They bring training in, and get our employees to exclusive and sometimes very expensive programs. WorkBar members can always help themselves to coffee, Italian soda, snack pretzels, and draught beer(!).

Cost savings: Instead of having to sign a lease and purchase a seemingly endless list of office equipment, WorkBar provides all of that for us: printer, scanner, fax machine, locker storage, etc. From an accounting standpoint, I prefer the OpEx approach. The saved money goes back to our products.

The office space “Cloud”: Upward Mobility requires us to hire experts in their field and work with them for a finite amount of time. Our latest company, Noyo, requires us to hire expert language editors, linguists, translators, and native voice talent. We also have interns and externs. On any given week, our staff can range from 3 to 10 people at WorkBar. The ability to handle our variable office space and collaboration needs without additional overhead is pivotal for the operation of our business.

This is why we consider WorkBar an essential partner, and have chosen to stay there as we launch what we hope will be another successful venture in Noyo, our first product launch and an exciting Spanish language-learning app for tablets!

Launching Noyo from WorkBar HQ:

Noyo Spanish is massive with over 1800 vocabulary words. It has engaging graphics, high-quality audio from a native speaker, and an intuitive navigation. Our goal was to deliver an amazing and fun-filled experience for beginning-level Spanish learners. We hired a team of talented artists to bring to life nearly 200 custom-illustrated scenes. Again, the dollars we saved going the WorkBar allowed us to really invest in great artists and that quality shows through, we think.

We think people of all ages will enjoy the friendly characters and amusing scenarios while at the same time effortlessly building their vocabulary. Certainly, learning Spanish has never been made more easy and fun.

We organized Noyo into eight separate vocabulary units with dozens of colorful and memorable scenes for each unit. The user can interact with each scene by tapping on individual items to access audio and written translations of each word, with each scene followed by a set of focused assessment questions. In the end, we what we think is a great, high value piece software with extremely appealing and entertaining visuals. We hope you will check it out!

Questions? Give Us A Shout

At Workbar, we believe your workspace should adjust to your needs – and not vice versa. We build quality workspaces packed with modern amenities, and offer monthly membership packages that give you the freedom and flexibility to be successful.

With 10 Workbar locations in the Boston area and 10 partner locations, both in urban and suburban settings, Workbar gives you the option to choose where to work each day.